96 gt legacy coil packs

[Guest]

recently bought this car and not too far down the track started having some issues, car has done 114,000k's. car was for the wife so i didnt drive it to experience everything first hand. started with car seemingly being quite hot after decent drive, temp gauge reading normal but car smelled hot (that coolant smell), continued to use the car, got to the point where the car started to shudder quite bad at idle, seems to have lost alot of power, almost seems like doesnt come on boost. was going to check for cel but battery was flat so is on the charger and i will have a look at that tomorrow. have just changed spark plugs. oh also the exhaust temp light was coming on towards the end. any help much appreciated

[ReubenH]

Have you checked the oil? Coolant? When was the last oil change?

[Guest]

not sure, we havent even done 1000k since owning it, will drop the oil out, thats a cheap place to start

[Durty-Sanchez]

• Check error codes (if any)
  
• Replace oil + coolant + thermostat
  
• Has the cambelt/waterpump been done? It's of that age and may not have been seen to yet. Use a genuine subaru thermostat when doing so.
  
• Is it a coolant smell or an oil smell?
  
• Coil packs.. always fun, but might explain rough idle
  
• Check fuel pump wiring - it's amazing what a poorly operating fuel pump can do
  

[Guest]

is the thermostat on top radiator hose or bottom?? looks like a mission to change. cambelt etc possibly hasnt been done yet, cant see any evidence of it being done. have had the coil packs off when i did the spark plugs so they arent so bad to replace, just the cost im more concerned about. when checking for cel will the number come up on the dash or do i have to count the flashes of a light like some other cars??

[Durty-Sanchez]

Thermostat's on the bottom hose, not too bad to get to... codes will flash at you via the check engine light (long pulses are 1st digit, short pulses are 2nd digit)

[zarnah]

blocked cat convertor, had it happen to me before

[Guest]

i was thinking about the cat, easy enough to drop it off and smash the guts out of, would explain the engine being down, exhaust chocking the engine. also thought perhaps o2 sensor, sending wrong message to ecu causing a retard in ignition timing meaning run lean= overheat and down on power. will check the cat out tomorrow and change the oil, go from there, cheers for all the help, no disrespect intended but first subaru ive owned what a mission to work on.. need a 5y/o's hands LOL

[Guest boostcut]

subarus are the easiest cars to work on, bar twin turbos and 2e corollas.

[Guest]

i dont know about that, ive owned all sorts of different cars and i dont remember any of them being a full blown mission to change the spark plugs, 2 out of 4 of the rubber things stayed on the spark plugs rather than come off with the coil packs.. man was dam hard to get them off..

i have taken the mid section of the exhaust out and its not quite as simple as hollowing the guts out of the cat converter, seems pretty solid in there?? whats the norm? is it possible to hollow them out or should i just replace the section of the exhaust with straight pipe?? will take the car for a drive in the morning with the exhaust off see if it goes any better

[zarnah]

just leave it off haha, will be loud as hell but see if it cures your problems. By the way, you're not Judd from Oamaru?

[Guest]

nah dude i live in cambridge

[Guest]

ok so cel comes up clear, just get the constant flashing engine check light with the jumpers conected, had the mid section of the exhaust out and seems to be no better. have put engine flush in with the old oil and left it running for half an hour so will dump the old oil out tomorrow and top it up with some fresh stuff, put the exhaust back in and see how it goes.. the drive down the road was a rather noisey one today with the open headers. also got injector cleaner to add into the petrol on the chance that there is a fuel block in an injector or somewhere. will reset ecu once i have done all of the above and hope for the best

[Guest]

ok so knocked a heap of crap out of the exhaust, put it back in, changed the oil took it for a run.. still no change.

i used to have a turbo integra race car that used to do something similar under acceleration/boost when one of the injector plugs was loose. leads me to think now the problem is either spark or fuel related. spark plugs have just been changed albeit cheap copper plugs not the flash iridium plugs. put some injector cleaner in with the fuel incase of fuel block somewhere. so next step possibly the coil packs?? at what stage of the ej20tt's life do these things start to give you problems?? are they expensive to buy new?? do you have to buy genuine or is there an aftermarket option at repco?? anything else ignition wise that could go wrong that wouldnt throw a cel code? tia

[gazzy2000]

i have a S/H set if you want, PM me

[Durty-Sanchez]

 judd said:

ok so knocked a heap of crap out of the exhaust, put it back in, changed the oil took it for a run.. still no change.

i used to have a turbo integra race car that used to do something similar under acceleration/boost when one of the injector plugs was loose. leads me to think now the problem is either spark or fuel related. spark plugs have just been changed albeit cheap copper plugs not the flash iridium plugs. put some injector cleaner in with the fuel incase of fuel block somewhere. so next step possibly the coil packs?? at what stage of the ej20tt's life do these things start to give you problems?? are they expensive to buy new?? do you have to buy genuine or is there an aftermarket option at repco?? anything else ignition wise that could go wrong that wouldnt throw a cel code? tia

Coils aren't cheap (110+gst each at the cheapest). You'll need genuine coils unless you convert to aftermarket and mount them elsewhere and run leads to the plugs. Your cars of the age where it probably needs new ones, but it'd suck if you forked out $500 odd and it didn't solve your problem.

- Does it missfire when you put your foot down? Or does it just feel like it's got no go?

- Reset your ECU by disconnecting it for 24hrs. Your model still stores timing values in volatile memory so that'll be enough to wipe it clean. I know it's time to do mine when I can see i'm at full boost but have the acceleration of my mothers pulsar.

- Fuel pumps are another common item to go in these cars around this age. I replaced my coils for the 2nd time before realising it was the pump + crappy wiring that was causing my hesitation/misfires. The wiring to the pump can also be suspect if you have a lot of back seat passengers.

[Guest]

it misfires, either not getting spark or not getting fuel into one of the cylinders im assuming because it seems to idle ok run ok at low revs but under load etc just misfires, so possibly rules out the pump because its getting some fuel atleast. im going to try get some second hand ones from wrecker mate swap them out one by one and see how it goes. the car had a flat battery before so would that have been enough to clear ecu memory?? was disconnected for 24 hours while i charged the battery, reset ecu you plug the black jumpers and green jumpers under the steering column and drive constantly above 11km/h or something to that effect??

[Durty-Sanchez]

24hrs with the battery off should have been enough. The old green & black jumpers and drive trick does clear fault codes and a few other memory locations but to wipe *everything* you can't beat the battery off trick.

Swapping coils one by one could be a PITA - find some decent ones and swap them all at once, at least that way you can spot any improvements over the old set. I wouldn't rule out the pump just yet... if it's getting on a bit or has a less than ideal power supply then it may struggle under load. At idle/town driving the pump could be supplying enough fuel to do the job. Stick your foot down and all of a sudden the pump starts to struggle to keep up with demand. The resulting lean condition could be your missfire... What did your old plugs look like? When my pump was playing up I noticed they were very white and powdery when I did them + coils, that's what gave me the hint that it was running lean and I had just wasted $500

 judd said:

it misfires, either not getting spark or not getting fuel into one of the cylinders im assuming because it seems to idle ok run ok at low revs but under load etc just misfires, so possibly rules out the pump because its getting some fuel atleast. im going to try get some second hand ones from wrecker mate swap them out one by one and see how it goes. the car had a flat battery before so would that have been enough to clear ecu memory?? was disconnected for 24 hours while i charged the battery, reset ecu you plug the black jumpers and green jumpers under the steering column and drive constantly above 11km/h or something to that effect??

[Guest]

i didnt think the plugs looked too bad at all. i guess if i take the coils off i may aswell check the plugs, seen as they are brand new it should be easy to spot the one thats not burning fuel properly